Jumping the gun

Date: 17/04/1997

The new Director-General for consumer affairs, Horst Reichenbach, has taken openness and transparency further than ever before.

A week into his reign, he informed the press that the BSE multi-disciplinary committee had recommended reimposing the export ban on British gelatine.

He was remarkably prompt in delivering a draft statement to journalists, mostly German, summoned to a briefing on the subject - remarkable because the meeting at which the decision was reached did not take place until the following day.

Much embarrassment for Reichenbach, whose task is to ensure that all decisions are taken on the basis of sound scientific advice...

Reichenbach might have been a day early, but at least he did not reveal top secret information. Unfortunately, the European Agency for the Evaluation of Medicinal Products did, apparently, in its latest ultra-thick press pack.

Rather than just keeping quiet about the error and hoping that sleepy scribes would not notice, the agency fired off a fax to all recipients pointing out that a certain page in the press material had been included by mistake and stating: “As this page contained privileged information, we would kindly request you to remove and destroy this page without delay and to ensure that it is not disseminated to any third party.”

You can rest assured that an honourable European Voice wordsmith did just that - but not before peeping to discover that the top-secret missive was in fact a message from the agency to a research institute arranging discussions on a new drug. Hardly Watergate, but it's nice to be trusted.